Author Archives: susan

  Spring came in with sunshine and warmth. Yesterday in the late afternoon I stood with my husband in the courtyard at the front of our house. A grey shrike thrush flew to a blossoming plum tree, perched on the … Continue reading →

I pause, waiting for the kettle to boil, standing at the kitchen window and looking out into the gathering dusk. This part of the house is set up high on stumps so that it’s almost at second storey height; I … Continue reading →

First day of Spring!

I’m either reading less fiction, or more non-fiction – I’m not sure. I haven’t been able to get my teeth into any novels lately, and at tomorrow’s Book Group Zoom meeting I am going to have to confess, yet again, … Continue reading →

We went for a walk yesterday afternoon. It was sunny and lovely and the bush is springing to life after all the winter rains we’ve had. Much of my childhood was spent living near the beach; I spent hours searching … Continue reading →

The world seems full of pain and distress right now. Mainly, it’s the pandemic, rolling on and on like a juggernaut, crushing lives and hopes and dreams. And I don’t mean the Bali holiday, the anniversary cruise, the gap-year spent … Continue reading →

The Ouse is a small English river, only 84 kilometres long (and for comparison, the Thames is 346 kilometres and here in Australia, the Murray is 2,508 kilometres long). To those who are interested in literary lives, it is most … Continue reading →

It’s a thing, a genre. It’s my new obsession. Women, walking. Women thinking while walking. Women walking while looking backward and forwards, moving between their pasts and their futures and meditating on nature. Human nature seems to come into stark … Continue reading →

I’m a writer, but like most writers, I need a day job. And I have a new one. My old job was as a bookseller. Two days a week, 9 to 5.30. I  spent my days answering phones, taking orders, … Continue reading →

Elinor Cleghorn, an English scholar, researcher and writer, has written a must-read book about how Western medicine has failed women…but it’s almost unreadable. For me, anyway. Not because it’s badly written – not at all – but because the subject … Continue reading →